Narrative
The deal memo reads £20,000. Three weeks later, £14,000 lands.
Take a familiar case. A festival in Europe books an artist for the main stage. The deal memo reads £20,000 gross performance fee, the biggest single-show fee of the artist's career. They sign, play the show, and three weeks later the bank account receives £14,000. Six thousand pounds has disappeared. Nobody flagged it. Everyone assumed 'gross fee' meant the number in the contract. The adviser's job is to know exactly where that £6,000 went, and how much is recoverable.